


Metal Gear Solid 6:  The Infernal Conflict

by JohnDoeTheAssassin (jndetke)



Series: Metal Gear Solid 6- The Infernal Conflict [1]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Bears Similarities to Metal Gear Solid 3, Canon Continuation of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Canon Continuation of Metal Gear Solid 4, Cyber Snake, Cyberpunk, F/M, Hopefully This Turns Out to Be Good Because I'm Excited About Writing It, Humans Are Now Metal Gears, I Haven't Played Much of MGSV The Phantom Pain Because It Was Meh In My Opinion, Inspired Somewhat By Ghost in the Shell, MGS4 Theme Is SENSE MGSR:R is TRANS MGSV is RACE MGS6 is POST, Metal Gear to End All Metal Gears, Snake Became a Cyborg, Snake's Friends Are Now His Enemies, Transhumanism, anticipatory grief, posthumanism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26616274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jndetke/pseuds/JohnDoeTheAssassin
Summary: In the universe of Metal Gear (the canon continuation of Metal Gear Solid 4:  Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance), Solid Snake has been cybernetically enhanced to survive his advanced aging.  The world is being ravaged by the continued war between transhuman PMCs and global climate change.  Solid Snake-- now "Cyber Snake"-- has been called out of retirement to stop a catastrophic global threat-- a Metal Gear capable of wiping out all life on Earth.  But worse than that, he has no choice but to fight against the iconic characters of the series that he used to call friends.
Relationships: Johnny Sasaki/Meryl Silverburgh, Meryl Silverburgh/Solid Snake, Otacon/Naomi Hunter, Raiden/Rosemary (Metal Gear), Solid Snake/Original Character(s)
Series: Metal Gear Solid 6- The Infernal Conflict [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1936204
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. The Virtuous Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the rights to the Metal Gear series, so please don't come suing me or something like that, Konami/ Kojima Productions/ AO3. Regardless of that, I have mad respect for both Konami and the legendary Hideo Kojima and the game series that they've made; it's helped me overcome some serious demons in my own life and also fundamentally changed the way I thought about storytelling. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoy reading this. This is a project I'm genuinely excited about not just because of how deep the concept seems at the moment, but because I've already got it planned out in a treatment and can see myself actually finishing this series sooner rather than later! Hopefully I can follow through with that promise; I know my works' presence on AO3 has been sparse because of A, lack of planning out my various series, and B, wanting to focus on my own original projects, but I'm more hopeful about this series than the last several! Let me know what you think in the comments! I'll try to take whatever constructive criticism you have to heart! :)

**METAL GEAR SOLID 6: THE INFERNAL CONFLICT**

**CHAPTER 1— “THE VIRTUOUS LIMBO”**

Aboard the _Nomad III,_ a familiar hero stood on the edge of the cargo bay, overlooking the skies 40,000 feet above Hong Kong. He was completely naked, but the darkness of the night obscured his face somewhat.

There was a superstorm happening beneath him; the sound of the thunder was enough to make God tremble, let alone a demigod. Yet the demigod stood poised as he prepared to jump into oblivion.

“All right, this is as high as we can go without getting eaten alive by the storm,” said a familiar friend of the hero via the Cybernetic Cranial Codec (C3) device implanted in his Binary Intelligence Super-processor and Endoskeletal Control Terminal (BISECT), the hero’s new brain. “Try to make the jump without getting electrocuted. You may be a cyborg, but you’re no god.”

The hero grunted, and said in his typical gravelly voice that didn’t reflect his newfound youth at all, “I’ll be fine. We’ve done this countless times before.”

“Just like old times?” said his friend.

“Hardly. My body may be new, but my mind still feels ancient what with everything going on around me.”

“Times are changing. The world is much more technologically advanced now, even compared to back when the Sons of the Patriots system still existed. Frankly, if it weren’t for Sunny, I wouldn’t be able to keep up to date with the latest coding trends.”

“She get better at cooking eggs yet?”

“Surprisingly enough, yes. And I’m proud of her for that. I think Naomi and her new friend, really helped her break out of her shell… uh, put not intended. You know that friend of hers she met back at Meryl’s wedding?”

“I wasn’t there, but I remember. He decided he wanted to become a girl, too,” said the hero, staring into the storm with a glare as cold as the rain.

“Fortunately, the new cybernetic endoskeletal technology that nearly every human on Earth replaced their bodies with now allowed him to become one… to some extent.”

“Yeah. Glad Sunny didn’t follow suit and become a cyborg too,” said the hero. “There’s not much of a point to cooking eggs if no one’s able to taste them.”

“Actually, you’re one of the older models,” said his friend. “Now the Nu-Babylon corporation in Japan came out with models that allow humans to taste and smell again, as well as touch, hear, and see the normal way. All without the dangers associated with them.”

“That doesn’t make much sense to me,” said the hero. “What’s the point in eating or drinking if you don’t need to do it to survive?”

“You underestimate how different other people’s mindsets are to yours. People don’t do it to survive. They just want to be comfortable.”

“Huh,” the hero said, and grunted again. “Comfort’s an amenity that seems to be in short supply given that the world seems to be ending.” Another bolt of lightning struck, this one larger and closer in proximity to the _Nomad._

“Global climate change has gotten pretty bad due to how much resources are being poured down the drain into the war economy,” said the friend.

“War was never good for anything. And yet it continues to change. In order to stay relevant to the times.”

“You’d better get going. We’re going to miss your target zone.”

“30 seconds to deployment.” said a familiar digital female voice over the plane’s intercoms.

“Is that… Naomi.”

“Yeah, I programmed an AI with her likeness to help assist us.”

“You’re still grieving about her, aren’t you?”

“It’s not easy, losing someone you love.”

“Yeah,” said the hero, then added, “I would know.”

“10 seconds to deployment,” said the female voice.

The hero exhaled deeply for a moment, then took several steps back from the edge of the open bay doors.

“3… 2… 1… Deploy.”

Then he ran toward the edge and leapt off into the night.

The hero’s Solid Cyber Vision came online, and he could see through the darkness, along with a heads-up display of data including his altitude and his C3 link to his friend. His friend hadn’t worn glasses since the SOP incident. Then again, now he didn’t even need to wear contacts, either, since his eyes were artificial.

Naomi’s voice narrated his descent. “Altitude 30,000 feet.”

The hero began to see through the rain and clouds enough that he could see the glowing lights of the Hong Kong skyline beneath.

Then a massive gust of wind and rain from the superstorm pounded at him, while a blast of lightning and thunder disoriented him and sent his Solid Vision on the fritz.

“Damn it!” The hero growled as he fell out of the sky. “Otacon? Can you hear me? My HUD is disabled. I can’t see the target zone.”

Through the rain and the blinding effect the lightning had that messed up his sensory feeds, Snake could now start see Hong Kong even clearer as it began to clear.

His HUD then managed to come back online as the ringing in his ears stopped.

“…altitude, 20,000 feet.”

“Otacon, my jets can’t take this wind, this was a bad idea!”

The hero was thrown about in the wind as he descended further.

“Altitude, 15,000 feet.”

“Otacon, come in!”

“Altitude, 10,000 feet.”

_Wait… I think I can see the stronghold. Otacon said the Humility Tower was the one in the center, right?_

“9,000 feet.”

The hero’s jets managed to come on in time, so he corrected his course by extending the metallic wings armed with jets built into folds in his back, along with the jets built into his legs, and using his biofuel. 

“8,000 feet.”

He tried to glide through the air, fighting against the wind current despite that it was throwing him violently around in all directions.

“7,000 feet.”

Keeping an eye on the buildings below him, he could see he was getting closer to the target zone.

“6,000 feet.”

As his HUD improved its glitchiness, he saw that the highlighted target zone was the center building.

“5,000 feet.”

He’d only get one shot at this.

“4,000 feet.”

He made a final boost to put himself above the target zone with his jets.

“Deploy jets. Deploy jets. Deploy jets.”

The hero began to burn his biofuel in mass and level himself so he was standing up straight as his wings began to try and slow his descent along with his jets.

He saw himself coming toward the edge of the Humility Tower.

“Shit!”

Snake deactivated his jets and hit the ground, rolling just a few feet away from the ledge of the skyscrapers roof, where he could see the view of the massive drop he would have fallen to his death from.

If he hadn’t successfully completed the HALO jump.

The colorful lights of the futuristic Hong Kong skyline and streets below illuminated the body of the hero as he stared at them, catching his breath despite that it was merely a means of artificial homeostasis rather than a need for oxygen.

His C3 came back on. “Sorry, the lightning caused my C3 link to go haywire. It’s coming back online now; it looks like you’re in the vicinity of the stronghold. Are you atop the Humility Tower?”

The hero sighed, and replied, “Given that the other six towers’ signs say ‘Chastity’, ‘Temperance’, ‘Charity’, ‘Diligence’, ‘Patience’, and ‘Kindness’, I’d say so, Otacon.”

“Well that’s a relief. Welcome to Hong Kong, Solid Snake, or should I say Cyber Snake,” the hero’s friend, Otacon, said to the hero as he stood up from his crouching position, the cold glare of his green eyes piercing through the night as lightning struck again.

“Let’s just stick with Snake, Otacon,” Snake said. “I see why you titled this operation ‘Virtuous Limbo’ now.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” said Otacon. “I modelled this operation after Big Boss’s original operation back during the Cold War, Virtuous Mission. Only, unlike his mission, ours should go according to plan.”

“Should?”

“…about that. This contact you’re meeting, I got an anonymous tip as to who at might be from the dark web. Their initials were CRC.”

“Otacon! You know not to trust those! This could be a trap!”

“But… don’t you think it could be the Colonel?”

“I think that it’s likely a trap!”

“Well then keep your eyes peeled, Snake. Fortunately, you’ve got more than just my eyes to back you up this time.”

“What do you mean…” said Snake.

Then an oddly familiar voice came on to his C3, along with the hologram of the red-headed beauty.

“Snake? Come in, over.” said Meryl, whose eyes went wide and she blushed upon looking at Snake through the hologram. “Well, you’re an, um—a sight for sore eyes.”

“…Meryl.” said Snake. “You’re still alive.”

“Yeah. I could say the same about you. It’s a miracle that you were augmented before you, uh…”

“I know. How have you been since…”

“Since Akiba died?” said Meryl. Snake looked at the floor. She sighed, and said, “Fine. I had to take some time off from the battlefield to collect myself again.”

“Glad you were able to. Are Jonathan and Ed all right?”

“One of them is brain-dead, the other is slowly going insane. Even with these cybernetic bodies, having SOP to keep our minds intact made things so much easier.”

“Damn. That battle in Saudi Arabia really did a number on your unit.”

“Honestly I don’t like being reminded of it.”

“Right, sorry.”

“Anyway, how’s the old legend doing now that he’s got a new body?” said Meryl.

Snake said, “Are you telling me I need to find some clothes?”

“Snake!”

“Sorry again,” said Snake, smiling slightly. “I’m doing fine. I’ve missed you and the others. This war economy just can’t seem to give us a break.”

“How’re Otacon and Sunny doing?”

“Otacon’s doing well, too. He’s the same as ever. And Sunny’s eggs are delicious.”

“You always were a bad liar.”

“I’m serious.”

“You can’t even taste them!”

Meryl and Snake laughed for a minute. “So, what brings you to Hong Kong, Meryl?”

“I’m on a mission for the UN investigating the CEO of the Virtues Corporation,” she says.

“What have you found out so far?”

“Not much; the Limbo stronghold is a fortress. And I’m not as humble as you are to risk HALO jumping to the roofs in the middle of a superstorm.”

“Most people aren’t.”

“But what I have found out is that they kidnapped the Colonel for some reason, which was why we were called in in the first place.”

“So, he is here after all?”

“Let’s just hope he isn’t dead,” said Meryl.

“You’re not still mad at him?”

“Oh, I’m still mad,” said Meryl, “but he’s still family. I’ve lost so many friends already, I don’t want to lose him too. Grief seems to be eating my conscience alive lately. Every day, I feel like I’m just going through the motions, like I’m not really myself anymore.”

“To be fair, no one is,” said Snake.

“You’re talking about the fact that humanity doesn’t have human bodies anymore?” said Meryl. “Then again you always were old-fashioned. At this point, I’m just glad our minds are still intact. That’s what makes us human, right? Our consciousnesses? I mean, the soul is in the mind. All that bullshit about it being in your heart is just for hopeless romantics.”

“Your heart may be a metaphor, Meryl…”

“Of course, it is. It’s made out of metal now.”

“…but it still matters. You’re right. Our minds make us human. But we aren’t made of real life anymore.”

“What do you think life is, Snake, other than just, organic matter?”

“I didn’t take you as one to get into transhumanist ethics discussions, Meryl.”

“Me neither, I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. Johnny and I never got to have kids. Actually, we, uh… I had a miscarriage. Johnny wanted to name her Andrea… short for Andromeda. He always enjoyed looking up at the stars with me.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Meryl.”

“Me too.”

“I suppose you’re not as lucky as I am then,” said Snake.

“Why?”

“I always knew I was never going to have kids. It’s how I was born. I was created by man before I was a cyborg. It lessened the burden of any grief I might’ve felt, whether the event that caused it was experienced or anticipated.”

“Anticipatory grief?” said Meryl.

“Knowing that you’ll have to say goodbye to the people you love, sometimes in the harshest of ways.”

“You’re talking about former friends you’ve killed yourself.”

“Lots of them, yeah,” said Snake.

“That’s terrible.”

“Unfortunately, that was my job. But I’ve had enough of that now. My job now is whatever I want it to be.”

“Do you think we can escape our fate, Snake? Can we choose a future where we don’t die on this planet? We can exist among the stars.”

“To be honest, I doubt it.”

“Then how can you be the one choosing your job? I think something’s holding you back, Snake.”

“I disagree,” said Snake, which made Meryl pause. “I think you’re the one who’s changed, Meryl. You’re stronger than this. I know you are. You can get through your grief. I promise.”

“Thank you, Snake,” said Meryl. “I hope you get through whatever grief comes your way as well. Right, now let’s get down to business.”

“How are you able to help me?”

“For starters, your clothes. Do you remember how to scan someone’s body to create a disguise of them?”

“Yeah; the endoskeleton beneath my artificial skin exterior contains photoelectric cells combined with what’s essentially a 3D printer. I just have to touch a surface to upload the images of something to my BISECT. For camouflage, I can press against cover, walls or ceilings that I’m climbing, crawl along floors, mimic water, mud, sand, bushes, snow, statues, or trees. For disguises, I have to use non-lethal force— preferably CQC— to subdue someone and then scan their body. Then of course, there’s always the good-old holographic cardboard box trick if I can find one to scan.”

“Right. Now you’re going to need some clothes to cover up that… uh, snake… of yours, and help you infiltrate the area where Campbell’s being held, as my recon team says it’s guarded by a checkpoint with a camera that’s booby-trapped with an alarm if you try to disable or hack it. You’ll also need to find the password to the keypad lock somewhere, as it’s booby-trapped with an alarm as well.”

“How do you know all this?”

“A member of my recon team found this out the hard way. Didn’t make it out alive.”

“Right. Do you have any idea what I do from there?”

“I’m afraid not. After you meet with Campbell, do whatever he says in terms of getting information on the Virtues Corporation. Then you’re to extract him and rendezvous with me on the roof of the Charity building. I’ve managed to find a plane there that we can commandeer out of here. Can you zipline from building to building?”

“Easy. I’ve got an industrial grappling line launcher built into my wrists, along with adhesive layers in my hands and feet that allow me to cling to walls. I should have enough line to get there. Just be ready with the plane. I’m assuming you have a pilot?”

“You’re looking at her.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m dead serious.”

“That’s my line,” said Snake.

“Needless to say, be stealthy. We don’t need to cause an incident in Hong Kong, especially with the respective hostilities between China, Hong Kong, and the United States. China’s been trying to annex Hong Kong for decades. If we fuck up, we might just give them an excuse.”

“Or start another world war.”

“Exactly. So, don’t leave any evidence you were there, and keep the body count to a minimum if possible. Meryl out.”

Snake nodded as the call ended and Meryl’s hologram disintegrated.

Snake got up to find a guard patrolling the roof with a sniper rifle. Snake quickly snuck up behind the guard, and grabbed him using CQC, batting his rifle out of his hands. The guard yelled, only for Snake to wrap his hand around his head and mouth while grabbing his body with the other. 

The guard yelled a muffled, “What the fuck!” under Snake’s grip.

“I need your clothes, your boots, your rifle, and the keycode to the booby-trapped door lock downstairs,” said Snake to the guard.

“I’m not giving you the password—arrgh!” yelled the guard as Snake broke his arm.

“I can always pry it out of your skull, if you’d prefer that.”

“I don’t know the password, okay? They update it every 6 hours. Maybe the head of security can tell you.”

“And where would I find him?”

“In the security center on the top floor!”

“Thank you,” said Snake.

“Anytime—urrk!” the guard yelped as Snake choked him to sleep. Then Snake scanned his unconscious body and slowly his body was enveloped by a 3D printed copy of the guard’s clothes, complete with full textures, shapes, pigments, and layers.

Snake held up his hand to the keypad leading to the stairway down from the roof, and the veins in his arms, neck, and head glowed a soft electric blue for a moment as he hacked the lock. Then it opened.

He scanned the stairway for cameras; there were none. Carefully, he opened the door leading into the top floor. He memorized the patterns of the guards on the Cyber Soliton Radar device connected with his Solid Cyber Vision as he walked by them in his disguise, trying to maintain a low profile. There were security cameras everywhere, along with laser tripwires dancing along the corridors. Snake had to time his movements to avoid the laser tripwires, and did several rolls over them, shimmying against walls, and crawling under them.

Snake approached the security center and hacked the keypad lock to the door. He opened it, and, using his augmented reflexes, fired his tranquilizer pistol at the two guards guarding the head of security while quickly sprinting toward him, and doing a CQC chokehold on him.

“What the hell? I should’ve known! I requested a status update from the soldier you’re imitating a minute ago and he didn’t respond!”

“Clever of you to catch on. Now, tell me the password to where Colonel Campbell’s being held.”

“Sure thing,” laughed the head of security. “It’s whoarethepatriots01310011161. He’s down in the floor below this one.”

“Of course. The Patriots. La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo in reverse.”

“Good luck getting to him… Snake.”

Snake body slammed him to the floor, knocking him out cold.

He used the security camera feeds in the security center to locate the Colonel. There he was, on the second highest floor, just as the head of security said.

He was being kept in an abandoned laboratory of some kind, restrained to some sort of fancy metal chair.

And outside the lab was the checkpoint, which was guarding a stainless-steel blast door.

After disabling the laser tripwires and setting the security cameras on a feedback loop of old footage, Snake headed out of the security center and toward another stairway to that floor.

Upon heading down the stairs, Snake said to Otacon, “Otacon, come in! The head of security knew I was coming. He recognized me, even in disguise. Worse, he seemed uncharacteristically cooperative when it came to telling me the password to get Roy out of captivity.”

“What?”

“I suspect I was right about your anonymous tip. I smell a rat.”

“That’s not good,” said Otacon. “All right, watch your back, Snake, and try to get Campbell out in one piece while also trying to learn more about the Virtues Corporation.”

Snake headed down in his disguise and approached the checkpoint.

 _Let’s hope this works,_ Snake thought, as he held up the stolen rifle in his arms and saluted to fool the guards.

“Go on and enter the password,” said one of them boredly.

Snake entered the password into the electronic lock’s console’s cybernetic touchpad keyboard, and looked briefly at the camera as it zoomed in on him.

“Cleared to enter,” said a digital female voice as the stainless-steel blast doors opened.

Snake entered and waited for the blast doors to close.

Five more guards were in the room. Snake shot them with his tranquilizer gun.

Snake looked around. The room was clear now, save for Campbell. There were empty containment pods typically used to store cyborgs’ bodies in biotech labs like this one everywhere in here, along with several other fancy chairs like the one Campbell was in. Other than that, several bright cybernetically-accessible monitors, screens, and computer consoles were lighting up the room full of scattered e-books, beakers, test tubes, and other equipment on the laboratory tables and floors.

Snake found the controls to the restraints keeping Campbell bound to the stainless-steel chair, and unlocked them.

Colonel Campbell said, “Snake. You’re here. Good. It’s good to see you again.”

“Good to see you too, Colonel.”

“Thank you for coming to help me escape.”

“Don’t thank me yet; we’ve still got to get to the extraction, and the mission’s not over. Meryl said you had information on the Virtues Corporation.”

“She’s right,” said the Colonel. “The Virtues Corporation is part of a larger megacorporation run by a man named Daniil ‘Dante’ Drakovich. He’s a Russian trillionaire who’s heavily invested in practically every industry on Earth… especially the war economy, and developing transhuman technologies. Rumor is he’s up to something bad, and that the Virtues Corporation is merely a front for an attack of some kind.”

“Attack? When is it going to happen?”

“I don’t know. But another rumor is that he’s developing a new kind of Metal Gear. One capable of wiping out all life on Earth.”

“ _All life on Earth?_ ” Snake was horrified at thought of it. “Colonel, why would he want to wipe out all life on Earth? What kind of maniac would do that?”

“I don’t think he wants to wipe it out,” said the Colonel.

“What? What do you mean? Why create a weapon to do just that if he’s not going to use it?”

“My best guess would be that it’s a deterrent. Whoever has the ability to destroy the world holds absolute power over it.”

“Damn it. Otacon, are you getting this?” said Snake.

“Yeah,” said Otacon. “this is way worse than I thought.”

Snake said, “Do you have any more intel for me, Colonel?”

“Yes. There are files detailing Drakovich’s entire operation on the top floor of the Patience Building. You’re going to have to zipline your way over there.” The Colonel added, “Meryl told me you had an augmentation that could help you with that.”

Snake frowned. “Wait a minute… Meryl said she’s been trying to reach you this entire time and hasn’t done so yet! How did _she_ tell you I was coming?”

“She didn’t tell you?” said Campbell.

“It’s news to me.”

“I see. Well, regardless, you’re going to have to get me out of here quickly,” said the Colonel.

“Right. Of course,” sighed Snake. “One more thing though.”

“Yes?”

Looking around the laboratory, Snake said, “This looks like a transhuman biotech laboratory to me. It looks like Drakovich was experimenting on human subjects. Do you have any idea what for?”

“Unfortunately, no. Hopefully we can find out in the Patience Building.”

“All right. Let’s go then,” said Snake.

Snake and Campbell hurried up to the rooftop, where Snake got another C3 call from Meryl.

“Meryl?”

“Hey Snake, I’ve acquired Daniil’s stolen private plane. I’m going to use it to try and extract the Colonel now that you’ve got him.”

“You’re awfully willing to jump to conclusions. Not to mention that I didn’t know you were big on keeping secrets.”

“Shit, did Roy say something?” said Meryl.

“He did, and you did too.”

“What do you mean?”

“You just implied you knew that the Virtues Corporation was a front corporation owned by one Daniil Drakovich, which was something the Colonel told me. What are you hiding from me, Meryl?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t know by now. Did Otacon not tell you what was going on here?”

“I thought he did know, but either he didn’t or he did but chose not to tell me. What the hell is going on?”

“Snake, listen, it’ll all be much clearer once you get the files. For all of us. I promise I’ll pick you up at the Patience Building once you get the DICE files.”

“The what?”

“Dante’s Infernal Conflict’s Evolution files, Snake. Those are the name of his files for his operation. They’re on a server in the Patience Building.”

Snake grunted, and said nothing.

“You have to hurry, Snake. I’m hearing chatter on enemy comms we tapped into saying that there’s been a break-in at the Humility Building. We may not have long until Limbo is locked down completely.”

“…and using the plane to get me over there instead of having me grapple over would risk breaking stealth. Got it. I’m on my way,” said Snake.

Snake went to the edge of the building, and located the Patience skyscraper in the Limbo stronghold among the mass of bright colorful lit-up buildings in the Hong Kong skyline. Looking down, he could see the lit-up streets below, but the cars looked like ants.

 _…here I go,_ Snake thought, as he used his Cyber Solid Vision’s zoom effect to aim his grapple line with as much precision as possible so it would hit the Patience building. Once he fired it, he waited to confirm its collision with the building. It landed and stuck to one of the windows four stories beneath its top floor. Despite how far the grappling line’s projectile could travel, it wasn’t perfect.

Snake detached the wire from the grapple cannon extended from his arm, and attached it to a pipe on sitting on the edge of the Humility building rooftop he was currently on. 

“Look away, Colonel,” said Snake.

“Why?” asked the Colonel.

“Because this snake is about to become naked again.”

“You’ll never grow up, Snake… figuratively or literally.” said the Colonel.

Snake smirked as he deactivated his disguise and connected his adhesive grip with the tiny grappling line, and slid down the line over the massive gap between buildings, trying not to look down.

He eventually made it to the other side, only to realize that a woman who was working in an office on her laptop was looking at Snake through the window, wide-eyed, unblinking.

Embarrassed, and worried about blowing his cover, Snake quickly activated his stealth camouflage.

The woman smiled coyly and looked back down at her laptop.

Snake couldn’t help take note that the woman was stunningly attractive; she had really thick blonde hair in a hairstyle that had it curled up into two large buns on each side of the back her head. She was wearing a scientist’s small white lab coat similar to the one Naomi used to wear, whose top revealed her cleavage.

Snapping out of his trance, Snake continued to climb up to the top floor using his adhesive grip. He then used an arc cutter built into one of his fingers to carve a hole in the window that he climbed through.

He was now in the top floor of the Patience building.

Seeing more guards, cameras, and laser tripwires ahead, Snake quickly hit the floor and blended in with it, printing another matching layer in a way similar to how his old OctoCamo suit worked onto his artificial skin.

Crawling forward without breaking stealth, Snake looked at the center area of the top floor using his Solid Cyber Vision. There was another steel blast door and checkpoint, presumably requiring a password and disguise neither of which he had nor was able to find.

 _Damn it,_ Snake thought, _what do I do?_

Then something surprising happened.

A barrage of several loud explosive bullets penetrated the flesh and endoskeletons of all nearby guards, killing them and leaving artificial red blood, shrapnel, fire, and dismembered cyborg limbs everywhere. 

_What the hell...?_ Snake thought as an overweight man wearing a Russian PMC outfit appeared, juggling some interesting-looking massive revolvers.

The man started firing at the stainless steel blast door, punching holes in it and burning through it with his explosive rounds until a massive hole in the door fell over, revealing the computer terminal with the DICE files on the other side.

The overweight man then turned towards Snake. “Brother!” he said.

“ _What?_ ” Snake whispered to himself; he couldn’t help but be surprised.

“Oh, come on, Snake… don’t you recognize me? It’s not like I put on too much weight.” The man put away his revolvers, and pulled out two soda cans to juggle instead before downing them in one go.

“ _Liquid Ocelot_?” said Snake.

“The others call me Fat Snake, brother. They bother me about my weight. And yet I’ve been fooling them all along. I’ve always wanted to be the man who stole my birthright. And now as it turns out, I finally _am_ that man!”

Fat Snake laughed.

Snake said, “How are you still alive? I killed you? Or… FOXDIE did.”

“Yes, on one hand, FOXDIE did in fact kill me. But I’m also here, before your very eyes. I wonder how that’s possible?” Fat Snake threw the cans to the side, and pulled out his revolvers and fired bullets all over the top floor, only they didn’t explode. Instead, they flashed bright red on and off.

“You have maybe a minute before this part of the building is destroyed with you in it, Snake. You’d better hurry and get those files while you still can. I helped you get to them, after all.”

As Fat Snake kept juggling his revolvers, Cyber Snake tried shooting him with his tranquilizer pistol, only for them to bounce off Fat Snake due to some energy field of yellow light that blocked the dart. 

Confused, Snake decided to run past him and into the vault the stainless-steel blast door was guarding, held up his hand to the computer to hack it.

Fat Snake said, “I’ll see you on the other side, brother,” as he fired an explosive bullet to shatter a glass window nearby him and leap out of the building from it.

Cyber Snake thought, _was that really him?_ Pushing that thought aside, Snake said, “Otacon, Meryl, Colonel, I’ve got the files but we have a problem… the building I’m in is about to explode!”

“Then get to the rooftop as fast as you can!” said Meryl. “My plane is close to it! Use your grapple line as a makeshift Fulton hook!”

Snake dashed out to the roof and got onto the roof.

He saw the blonde woman he had noticed earlier (and that had likely noticed him) running toward the plane in front of him, she must’ve used the elevator to pass him.

Stumbling as the ground started to fall to an angle, Snake began to slide off the roof, along with the woman. 

Seeing Daniil’s plane above him, he thought, _I’ve only got one shot at this,_ and fired his grappling line up toward it. Once he attached to the plane, Snake leapt off of the sinking building, and managed to grab the woman by the hand before she fell to her death.

 _Figured I might as well be a Good Samaritan,_ Snake thought as he grappled toward the plane while holding her up with one arm using his inhuman strength.

“Is that…?” said the woman as they grew closer to the plane. “No, no… Snake, you need to let go. Use your jets to land in the Limbo stronghold.” she said.

“I don’t think you understand,” said Snake. “My friends are piloting that plane and I promised I’d meet them.”

“I understand more than you know,” she said, “and they’re not your friends anymore.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Please trust me, Snake!” said the woman.

“Now that I think of it, why should I trust you if you know my name and you were in the building of a front corporation for Dante?”

It was too late regardless. Snake had grappled up to the plane and stuck to it and he managed to get himself and the mysterious beauty into the plane’s interior.

Only for him to learn something shocking.

Aboard the plane weren’t just Meryl and the Colonel, but also Jonathan, Ed, and even more of his friends! 

Mei Ling was there, and she had an angry sneer on her face with deadly weaponized fireflies shooting through her body.

Raiden was there, in a similar cybernetic body to what his was like before, with his swords and all, only he had ugly pointy teeth and a venomous tongue that looked similar to Vamp’s.

Naomi was there, carrying a massive sniper rifle and some odd sort of camouflage cyber-skinsuit.

Rosemary, Raiden’s wife, was wearing a biofuel rocket jetpack with a flamethrower attached to it.

For a second, he thought he saw Johnny Akiba’s ghost.

Meryl was wielding a Patriot-II machine gun with infinite ammunition strapped to her suit and said, “You can see him too, can’t you Snake?”

“What the hell… Meryl… what’s going on, I don’t understand. Why is everyone here?”

Then, in stepped a man shooting lightning bolts from his hands. He had blonde hair in a crew cut, and several lightning-shaped scars on his jaws.

“They say getting struck by lightning means getting burned by heat several times hotter than that of the Sun itself,” said the man. “At some point, the sun is going to burn us all alive, and yet life on Earth couldn’t have existed without it. We don’t need the will of the Sun, or the will of gods. We need the will of lightning.” said the man as he shot a massive, blindingly bright blue field of electricity out of his glowing cybernetic veins.

“Who are you?” said Snake.

“I believe your friends told you who I was,” said the man.

Snake said in disbelief, “Daniil Drakovich.”

“Call me Dante,” said Dante. “It’s time we descend into the depths of the inferno of my creation… Snake.”

Snake pulled out the assault rifle he stole from the guard he disguised himself as. “You’ve all got a matter of seconds to explain, so talk! What’s going on here?”

“Snake, we’re tired of fighting,” said Meryl. “It’s time for the end of life.”

Horrified at the implication of this, Snake said, “No. What have you done, Meryl?”

“We’re going to create a better world, Snake,” said Dante. “One where life can be reborn again, and thrive this time instead of merely struggle for survival.”

Snake looked at the woman he rescued briefly.

“This can’t actually be you,” said Snake. “You aren’t my friends! You’re impostors! All of you!” Snake tried to fire his gun, only for it to click.

Dante laughed at this. “These are in fact your friends… or rather, what’s left of them. You do realize that the gun is biometrically locked, right Snake? You’ve been out of the game for too long. What will you do without your good old friend Drebin here to save you?”

Meryl said, “Snake, we can be together again,” and offered Snake her hand.

Confused, Snake grabbed her hand.

“In death,” she said as she grabbed Snake and broke his cybernetic arm with CQC, causing Snake to yell in pain as she dragged him toward the plane’s emergency exit doors.

“Meryl, wait, what are you doing? Meryl, I’m your friend! It’s me, Snake! MERYL!”

Dante said, “I believe you asked the Colonel if he knew what my attack was going to be. You’ll get to see it for yourself once you hit the ground in Hong Kong.”

“Goodbye, Snake,” she said.

“NO!” Snake yelled as Meryl threw him off of the plane as it took off away from Hong Kong.

“The newblood has been rejected,” said Raiden, looking down as Snake as he fell.

Meryl reached out toward Snake with her hand as if to signify something while he continued to fall.

Snake barely managed to snap out of his pain before he hit the ground, using his jets to slow his fall. 

Then, as he got off of his knees after hitting the pavement of a nearby alley, he realized something was wrong as he heard the sounds of chaos all around him.

Gunfire. Explosions. Screaming. Destruction. Death.

Civilians were attacking each other and smashing up everything in the city. Snake’s BISECT was malfunctioning, and he was seeing static.

“OTACON!” Snake yelled into his C3 as he had no choice but to start fighting for his life.

“Hang on, Snake, we’re coming!” yelled Otacon.

Snake tried to locate a place for Otacon to land safely, doing his best to sneak around, only to find he couldn’t help but join in on the fighting with the civilians. It was as if he was slowly losing his mind.

… … … … …

Hours of fighting later, a miniature Metal Gear that was shaped like a horse used a wire built into it to grab, pull, and strap a dying Snake onto its back. Snake’s skin had been shot, ripped, and burned off by the battle, revealing his terrifying, Terminator-esque endoskeleton underneath, which was emitting electric bolts and had tons of dents in its chassis. It then carried Snake toward the _Nomad III’_ s landing zone.

“Snake!” As Sunny used her remote controller to puppeteer the Metal Gear Mark VI, Otacon yelled, “Quick, Sunny, get him onboard! We need to get out of here!”

“Otacon… Meryl… the others… they…”

“I know, Snake, I’ve been monitoring your BISECT. We have to worry about them later! Right now, I’m more worried about you!”

As they got Snake onboard the _Nomad,_ Otacon took off and they escaped Hong Kong just before it was too late.


	2. The Snake Soul Eater (Debriefing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snake is taken to a "cyber-care" clinic in Geneva to recover from the traumatic incident at the mysterious attack in Hong Kong. There, he is debriefed about his mission to take down Dante and his plans for humanity... and he might just have to take down his friends in the process as well.

**CHAPTER 2 (DEBRIEFING)— “THE SNAKE SOUL EATER”**

Snake lie restrained to a hospital bed made of the same alloy as his cybernetic endoskeleton and combat chassis as he saw and heard the others around him through the white noise and blurring static of his senses. 

_“…is this the only way to save him?” said Meryl._

_“I’m afraid so,” said an odd yet somewhat familiar female voice._

_“I’m against it,” said Raiden. “He wouldn’t approve of what his mind being used for. It’d turn him into the very thing he helped us fight against.”_

_“…what do you think, Otacon?” said Naomi._

_“I’m not sure. I don’t want to lose him, but… this whole thing just feels wrong.”_

_“I see. Do you really think Snake, if brought back to life, could help stop the war economy, and bring peace to the world once again?” Naomi said to someone other than Otacon._

_“I don’t think. I know,” said the female voice._

_“…are you sure Snake would want this, Meryl?” said Johnny._

_“…I don’t know. I really don’t.” said Meryl._

_“…Snake may not want to be brought back, but he’s always believed in preserving the good of humanity, no matter how much it hurts him in the process. And right now, the world needs him.” said Colonel. “Your heart is in the right place, Meryl. Do whatever it tells you to do.”_

_“…all right. Bring him back.”_

Then Snake remembered the horrors he experienced in Hong Kong; his friends had betrayed him. And as he lay in that hospital bed, he could see them in their new terrifying mechanical bodies, standing around him, laughing at him, taunting him.

Dante walked toward him. “Tell me Snake, how does it feel to be a computer program trapped inside a body that isn’t yours? How does it feel to know you’re dead but also believe you’re alive at the same time, in a hell you’ve always feared more than anything else? The hell in your head is here to stay, Snake. And it’s going to save everything and everyone… by consuming them all.”

And Snake watched and screamed in horror as his friends began to tear his cybernetic body apart right in front of his eyes. 

“NO!” Snake screamed, as he woke up, breathing heavily. He was in the same hospital bed. He looked around, but Dante and the others were gone. Several cybernetic surgeons and nurses were standing around him. Otacon and Sunny came running in the door.

“Is he alive?” Otacon said to the head surgeon.

“He barely made it. If you got him here any later, he might not have, though.”

“Thank god,” said Otacon. “Snake, can you hear me?”

“Otacon,” Snake coughed, “what’s going on? Where am I?”

“You’re safe, Snake. For now. We’re in a cyber-care clinic in Geneva run by a set of several PMCs that NATO is allied with. All of them are also rivals of Drakovich’s PMCs.”

“You brought me here?”

“If it weren’t for Sunny’s puppeteering of the Metal Gear Mk. VI, then I don’t think you’d have made it out of Hong Kong. They said your body is healed; it’s fully functional and good to go once more.”

“Hong Kong… Otacon, what happened back there? With all those civilians fighting each other, they… I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I was fighting to survive, but it seemed like I was just trying to kill as many of them as I could before one of them killed me.”

“We don’t know, Snake, but we know Drakovich had something to do with it,” Otacon said.

“Why did all of our former friends become allies with him?”

“I don’t know. I can’t believe they’d do such a thing.”

“Dante must have done something to their minds,” said Snake.

“Speaking of Dante…” said Otacon, “…it sounds like you’re about to be tasked with killing him.”

“Why me?” said Snake.

Their conversation was interrupted as a holographic television came on in the hospital room, and none other than the current US President, Hannah Brady, appeared on it as a 3-D hologram.

“Snake,” said President Hannah Brady, “or is it Cyber Snake now? Which one of you am I addressing?”

“Snake is fine, Madam President,” said Snake.

“Apologies to present you with such dire information right after you nearly died. But after the attack in Hong Kong, we believe the future of the free world is at stake. Given I’ve been informed that your former colleagues have formed an alliance with the person who organized this attack—one Daniil Drakovich—it falls to you to rectify this situation.”

“What about you, though?” said Snake. “Can’t the US Government condemn Drakovich? Make the free world turn against him?”

“We would if the US government had any power left. After the Patriots collapsed, we’re now more of a relic of the old world than anything else. The real factions that are fighting the war for control of the world aren’t nations or their governments, but the PMCs they hire. And in this case, Drakovich’s PMCs are bigger, tougher, and more numerous than any other government, conglomerate, or institution in the world. Put simply, we’re outgunned, outnumbered, and outclassed in the war against him. 

“Not to mention that he has a lot of followers and sympathizers worldwide due to his radical beliefs in saving the world from climate change through a combination of terraforming and transhumanism to reduce resource consumption and pollution and recreate the world’s resources instead.”

“Right, so you’re having me assassinate him instead.”

“Yes. If we strike the head of the serpent, all we have to do is let its body collapse under its own weight,” said the POTUS.

“A fitting metaphor,” said Snake, looking away.

“In more ways than one, it’s not just a metaphor,” said President Brady. “We’ve given your mission to assassinate Drakovich and stop his plans the codename ‘Operation Snake Soul Eater.’ It’s modeled after Big Boss’s second mission in the Cold War, Snake Eater.”

Snake said, “Again with Big Boss’s references. Why do we have to keep bringing him up anyway?”

“For starters, the mission is similar to yours in terms of how it’s laid out,” said Otacon. “Again, you’ll go in naked, without clothes or equipment. In addition, for the sake of safety, some of your new endoskeleton’s augmentations are disabled to help your mind deal with your current trauma. You nearly lost control of your mind back there. I checked your diagnostics; your BISECT went haywire! The more you manage to work it off, though, the more augmentations you’ll manage to re-activate over time. That’s why exercising and using your combat and stealth abilities to the fullest is crucial for this mission,” said Otacon. “Also… you’re not going to like this…”

“I usually never do.”

“…but in case you couldn’t tell already, your new endoskeleton is even less functional than the prior one. Our NGO has been defunded due to the betrayal of our allies causing lack of trust among investors, so we have to rely on NATO’s more primitive endoskeleton models.”

“Great,” said Snake. “I don’t stand a chance at killing Drakovich with a body like this.”

“It’s not the end of the world,” said Otacon. “You can always fix up your endoskeleton by finding spare cyborg parts in the world and re-building your body from the ground up at a crafting station. It’s like you’re your own Metal Gear, albeit one that’s under construction.”

“Right,” sighed Snake.

“On that note, if it’s all right with you, Mr. Emmerich,” said the POTUS, “I’d prefer to say this next part to Snake alone.”

“Of course, Madam President,” said Otacon.

“Snake, I’m connecting to your BISECT’s Cybernetic Codec Communicator now,” said the President.

Snake watched as President Brady’s hologram made an electronic hallucination-esque transition from the screen into his visual cortex.

“There’s also someone in the field who should be able to help you fix up your body good as new on the go,” said the POTUS. “She’s an ally, and a genius in several different fields of expertise, including cybernetics.”

“ _She?_ ”

“Her codename is Ultra Mouse,” said the POTUS. “She’s currently working as a mole within Daniil’s organization, posing as his mistress.”

“Ultra Mouse?” said Snake.

“Yes. You are not to let anyone know who she is, for fear of blowing her cover to someone whose mind may not be their own. Not Mr. Emmerich. Not Sunny. Not even yourself.”

“Of course, Madam President, I’ll keep things hush-hush—wait, hold on a second. How am I supposed to keep her codename a secret from _myself?_ ”

Ignoring him, President Brady said, “She told us that whatever happened in Hong Kong was merely a test of a larger attack Drakovich has in mind. Your objectives besides assassinating Drakovich are to find out what this plan of attack is, what sort of weapon of mass destruction is causing it, and stop future attacks from happening by sabotaging the unknown WMD.”

“And my friends? What about them?” said Snake.

“If they cannot be convinced to return to our side of the fight, then I’m afraid you’ll have to take them out too,” said President Brady.

Snake was silent for a moment.

“You are to meet with Ultra Mouse at the terraformed jungle garden of Drakovich’s private estate near Bangkok for more information about your mission. She will help you infiltrate a party that Drakovich is throwing for some of his conglomerate’s rich clients, and then will help you infiltrate his ranks.

“What does she look like?”

“Unfortunately, it’s best you find out for yourself. To help identify her, you will ask her the passphrase ‘who are the Apostles?’ If it’s her, she’ll answer, ‘01310011161’.”

“That’s the same passphrase as the one I found out in the Limbo stronghold! Are you sure it’s safe to use that passphrase?”

“It’s the one that she agreed upon, Snake.”

“How do you know we can trust her?”

“Unfortunately that information is classified. We know we can trust her, it’s just a matter of you needing to as well.”

Snake sighed again. “I can’t believe I’m being sent on a mission to go after my friends.”

“We know this mission isn’t going to be easy. But we know you’re the one for the job; a lesser man would be crushed by such a burden.”

“Right,” said Snake.

“All right, that’s enough information for now,” said Hannah. “My part of the debriefing is over. The world is counting on you, Snake. Good luck.”

Snake nodded as the POTUS’s hologram disappeared.

Otacon said, “Is your debriefing over, Snake?”

“Yeah, Otacon,” said Snake.

“Good. Sunny and I got help with disguising the _Nomad III_ as a commercial airliner. We’re going to drop you off in the ocean not far from the coast of Bangkok. You still have jets, so you should be able to make the jump, and given you don’t need oxygen, you should be able to make the swim to the beach. After that, I’ve been told a PMC allied with NATO has a safe house within the city’s slums. They’ve given us its GPS coordinates. A black market arms dealer working with them left you some additional weapons, as well as materials for augmenting your body. Make sure you store them in your endoskeletal vacuum pack for the mission.”

“Got it,” said Snake. “I’m glad at least you’re still on my side, Otacon.”

“Don’t be glad yet,” said Otacon. “We still have a job to do.”

Snake frowned, and nodded.

Sunny brought a plate of eggs to Snake. “Are you hungry, S- Snake?”

Snake smiled slightly. “My body isn’t designed to be hungry, but I’ll eat them anyway. Thanks, Sunny.”

Sunny smiled back, and nodded. “Can I ask you a favor, S- Snake?”

Snake said, “Sure.”

“If somehow y- you’re able to s- save the others from Dante’s control… then promise me you’ll do it. I don’t want t- to lose them too.”

Snake frowned, and looked at the plate of eggs for a moment until he became buried in his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a short chapter update! I've been busy with work lately as well as (failing at) working on my NaNoWriMo original novel project. Hence why I haven't gotten to work on my fanfics here as much, which I want to do more often. But regardless, I hope you enjoy this; my next chapter will be much longer!


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